The French novelist Patrick Rambaud has written an excellent historical novel that is based on several eyewitness memoirs. The subject is the Battle of Aspern-Essling in May 1809, which was Napoleon's first serious battlefield defeat. Napoleon attempted the most difficult military operation of all: an opposed river-crossing against an alert and resolute enemy. A hard-fought two-day battle for the villages of Aspern-Essling resulted, exposing the fact that the emperor was not infallible and that he could make mistakes. Rambaud's version of this brutal slugging match is equally brutal. Heads are blown off by roundshot, civilians are murdered and the thousands of wounded are left to suffer in the rain and mud. Numerous soldiers, including one of the fictional enlisted soldiers, commit suicide under the stress of battle. This novel is not as good a work as Michael Shaara's The Killer Angels, partly because Rambaud does not attempt to interpret what the characters were thinking. The other reason is that there are no Austrian characters; in Killer Angel's, Shaara brilliantly portrayed soldiers from both sides and their efforts to prevail over the other, but that balance is lacking here.

The characters in the battle range from Napoleon on high, to Marshals Massena and Lannes, to mid-rank soldiers and even a few enlisted soldiers, although the focus tends to stay mostly on the upper ranks. Massena is probably the most interesting figure in the novel, since his battlefield performance as Aspern was incredible. Others however, like Colonel Lejeune, a general staff officer, become tedious as he spends far too much of the novel mooning of his Austrian girlfriend in captured Vienna. Rambaud also omits or alters some key aspects of the battle. The French three-division counterattack on the second day is portrayed as a success in breaking the Austrian center when in fact, the nearly-routed Austrians were personally rallied by Archduke Charles and their center held. The French attack ran out of steam, but Rambaud's account says that the French called of the attack because their bridges over the Danube had been broken. In fact, Rambaud clearly portrays the cause of this defeat as bad luck and the rising waters of the Danube River in frustrating Napoleon's efforts to get reinforcements across the river. In reality, Napoleon's slipshod river-crossing effort and gross underestimation of the enemy were prime contributors to his defeat. The fact that the Austrian army had learned something from its earlier defeats in 1796-7, 1800 and 1805 at Napoleon's hands is not even alluded to.

The strength of this novel lies in excellent battle descriptions that convey both the desperation and futility of this action. However a weakness of the novel is the addition of minor characters and sub-plots, including a dim-witted assassination attempt on Napoleon and opera performances, that distract the reader from the battle. These minor characters and sub-plots persist to the end, but without resolution or even relevance. Nevertheless, Rambaud's novel gives an excellent "feel" for what it was like to be in a Napoleonic battle.

i love a good war film, but this book, a historical recreation of Napolean's defeat near two small towns in Austria, is cinematic in its intensity, drama, excitement, and horror. while it helps to know some prior biographical information about the marshals and generals who lead the troops into battle, you won't be too hard-pressed to keep straight all the details. as vivid and anti-war as "johnny got his gun" or "all quiet on the western front," you will gain a front row seat to what it was like to wage hand-to-hand combat on a warm May day in 1809. you will experience the cannons, the smoke, the blood, the confusion, the terror, the roundshot taking off soldiers' limbs, the bloodlust and anarachy on the battlefield. Napolean was a lucky and brilliant leader, whose quick tactical thinking led to surprising truimphs, but even he acknowlwedges at the end that what had defeated him was not another army or leader but General Danube--the river. A force of nature, Napolean met his match with the Danube. Just wait til he experiences the Russian winter in a few years.

The Great Army is attacking Essling in the surbubs of Vienna. Napoleon galvanizes its troup to win yet another battle while facing an ennemy twice as numerous . This is like a 3D movie. you will smell the powder, feel the wounds and cringe at the horror of the scene. Unlike Hollywood revisionist view of history, these facts are historical and the courage of these men so amazing that you do not need loud explosive noises on the screen to be engulfed in the action. By far the best war book ever written.